Increasing Customer Loyalty

Tis' the season of giving, and the very act may help solidify customer loyalty. 

Companies that give back to society, i.e. market charitable donations or commit a percentage of profits on a particular product stand a better chance of securing loyal customers. 

Why? 

Businesses that demonstrate philanthropy are proving they care about societal well-being, which translates to them caring about their customers. 

Tom's shoes: This is an ideal example of a company that is based on charity. For every pair of shoes sold, another is donated to an underprivileged, bare-soled child somewhere in the world. The consumer is not only obtaining a product they want, but they get to feel great and selfless about it, justifying the purchase.  That justification helps facilitate positive word of mouth and repeat purchasing. 

Other companies tie a few products with a cause and pledge all or a portion of their profits to that organization. Gap's Red line is a great example of branding charitable giving. It is a permanent clothing line of theirs, to help the AIDS crisis in Africa.

This helps the GAP appear more corporately responsible and socially progressive, two characteristics that attract customers and retain their business. 

Bottom line- Whether an investment company announces a donation to a children's hospital in the annual holiday card, or an entire business stands upon a platform of donation, charity warms the consumer spirit and reigns those consumers in time and again. 

Tags: Increasing Customers loyalty, increasing customer loyalties, customer loyalty practices, more customer loyalty, better customer loyalty. 

5 Call Center Best Practices

This video outlines 5 fundamentals a great call center operations. 

Including and not limited to hours of operation, harnessing the benefits of live chat and clearly displaying contact information, these tips are basic, yet essential to any successful service center. 

Tags: Call center skills, call center tips, customer service call practices, customer service best practices. 

Managing Customer Service

How to navigate the tempestuous waters of holiday shopping hell. 

With black Friday officially kicking off the chaos-ridden season of holiday shopping, handling emotional and recession scarred shoppers will be extraordinary challenging. 

Someone died in a Walmart last year. Someone DIED! 

Black Friday has always been referred to as madness, but when death and injury occur, such description cannot ring truer and certainly highlights the necessity for extensive employee training for such intensity. 

Stores such as Walmart and Best Buy schooled their staff ahead of time for the mayhem by outlining ways to line customers up and instructed them to hide the most sought after products to control the mad dash. 

Yet how in such an environment, do you still provide good service without coming down on customers with fascist regulation? 

Insist your staff be: 

• As cordial as always 
• Proactive in offering help- don't let the customer go on a frantic search, continue to assist them in order to prevent irrational behavior. 
• Firm and to not take any animosities from customers personally 
• fully prepared to explain the reasoning for any newly instituted rules or special procedures. 

These are just a few ways to implement regular practices during an extraordinary retail environment. 

Information source

Tags: Managing customers service, customer service management, managers for customer service, managing for customer service, about managing customer service. 

Communicating for Great Customer Service

" Tell customers you appreciate their business" - anonymous 

In this season of giving thanks, businesses must remember to extend their appreciation to those most important: their customers. 

Saying thank you however, is more complicated than just uttering the words. It is about conveying sincerity and being specific. 

Don't just say thank you, say thank you for... their continued business, for their loyalty or for simply stopping in your store or checking out your web page. 

Something happen recently? Have they launched a complaint? In his book Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless,  Jeffery Gitomer outlines ways to more elaboratley thank customers in the wake of a problem. 

Tell the customer you recognize the effort they have put into the situation or the frustration they have endured. Acknowledging the particular situation and emotion involves proves you care about their specific experience. Thank them for letting you know, thank them for their patience.

AND don't forget to THANK YOUR EMPLOYEES! 

Thank them individually when you can, pointing out particular situations they have handled well or successful strategies and practices they've implemented. Making both your employees and customers feel appreciated helps them stay loyal and you successful. 

Tags: Communicating great customer service, great communicating for customer service, great communicating in customer service, communicating for customer service, on customer service great communicating. 

Managing Customer Loyalty

V. Responsiveness! 

Nothing is more detrimental to a company than their failure to respond quickly and efficiently in the midst of a problem and its accompanying criticism. 

This is why tracking consumer sentiment is essential to being responsive. Many consumers now take to the web and the blog sphere to vent, causing a single mistake on the part of the company to reach hundreds, or even thousands of consumers and taint their perception. 

Many large companies employ people to monitor this arena and ensure negative feedback and commentary is noted and addressed. The impact of such negative word of mouth can be severe and extremely difficult to recover from. 

The classic example of responsiveness in the midst of product crisis is the Tylenol case. When the pain killer was tainted with a deadly poison some decades ago, Tylenol responded not only with an immediate recall of the item, but an entirely new package that was built to protect the product and reassure customers of Tylenol's commitment to safety and quality. 

While thankfully death rarely ensues from consumer discontentedness, such disappointment disseminated to a large amount of people can prove fatal for a brand. 

When it comes to responding to consumers with an effective SOLUTION- the quicker the better. 

Tags: Managing customers loyalty, managing of customer loyalty, managing for customer loyalty, management and customer loyalty, managers of customer loyalty. 

Building Customer Loyalty By

IV Listening 

As discussed in previous posts, listening is essential to not only improve customer service practices, but to instill confidence in consumers that a genuine desire does actually exists to enhance their experience. 

Listening and hearing are two very different actions however, and often companies and service representatives fail to distinguish between them. Listening not only involves hearing what a customer has to say, but actively uncovering their wants and needs and then taking appropriate action to fulfill them. 

Hearing such wants and needs, when the information is handled correctly, results in improved customer service. Proving to consumers a company wants to hear them builds loyalty. People want their opinion to count, and with the pervasiveness of communication technology, they are able to find an outlet to do so. Companies must take action to ensure that outlet is not their competition, and provide mediums for dialogue. 

How? 

Websites with user-friendly customer feedback links, a presence on social networks, live chats, questionnaires, in-person questions such as "how did you find the service today?", opinion cards, etc. 

Offering these options help build loyalty  and with their ever increasing prevalence, have become not just an added feature, but a required fixture in the business world. 

Tags: In building customer loyalty, how to build customer loyalty, increasing customer loyalty, customer loyalty strategies, customer loyalty practice. 

Creating Loyal Customers

III. Transparency 

The current buzzword of the financial crisis not only applies to investors, but to consumers in every industry.  

Transparency is necessary for solidifying customer loyalty for any product or brand, and a business's resistance to this reality will prove fatal. 

With the extent of information available, customers will inevitably discover the truth about product quality through word of mouth or personal experience.  Therefore it is in any company's best interest to be as forthright as possible about their policies. 

Having a third-party disclose information about corporations and their practices, leaves a wide margin for exaggeration and little chance for companies to defend themsevles. Consumers are becoming increasingly discerning as the amount of information available on products and services grows exponentially, and will actively look for flaws and wrongdoing. 

From blogs to ratings websites where consumers can post their opinions, to rankings such as JD Power and Associates and organizations like PETA, business is under the microscope. 

Legislators have stepped up to try to improve transparency as well, and to the bane of many businesses, have succeeded in uncovering many unattractive truths. For instance, the  revelation of calorie counts at major restaurants and fast food outlets has led to great backlash against many of these company's highly unhealthy fare and their advertising and exposure that promotes such food. 

Now, many restaurants are realizing the marketing advantage of improving the nutrition of their offerings and voluntarily exposing their ingredients. 

Whether it's labor practices, fat content or financial balance sheets, companies are being forced to be more  accessible to consumers, and will undoubtedly benefit gain loyal customers through honest and straightforward operations. 

Tags: Creating customer loyalty, creation of loyal customers, creating loyalty in customers, creating loyalty for customers, customer loyalty practices, ways to make customers loyal.